Half-baked planning laws in line for a rigorous overhaul

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The state's planning laws will be streamlined so they are less complex and more predictable, as part of a reform package to overhaul a system which the head of the planning department calls a "shemozzle".

The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources director-general, Jennifer Westacott, yesterday outlined the changes which the Government has been working on since the last election and which are due to be officially launched tomorrow.

The reforms are designed to reduce duplication and speed up development approval by having firm strategic plans rather than having issues fought over during the planning process for individual proposals.

"So much of the planning system is bogged down by people wanting to revisit fundamental issues at the development assessment level, not at the upfront level," Ms Westacott said.

The reform package would create standard definitions for words found in local environmental plans like "floor to space ratio" and "hospital" and would provide the predictability necessary to make the metropolitan plan work.

"We need to have that predictability and the land release in western Sydney will be the first real test of how we can make the planning system more predictable."

The reforms would also improve the linkages between land use, natural resources and infrastructure planning.

"It is the natural resources system that has unravelled the planning system. It is the collision between natural resources, the environment and land use planning that has made the planning system a shemozzle."

It was important to take the time to get it right, Ms Westacott said. "My observation of land release and planning reform in NSW, in terms of what I believe I inherited was, particularly in the planning area, half-baked, half-thought-through ideas, no real reform of local government, no real reform of the institutions."